The Power of Experience

Charlotte Watts is a writer, one who loves to craft new universes and explore the ones that already exist. She has always loved writing in many forms- poetry, short story, or personal essay. She writes to reflect on her past, prepare for her future, and dissect the themes of topics that interest or concern her; power, legacy, change. Ever since Charlotte was a young child, writing has been a way for her to explore ideas, characters, and worlds all within the confines of her own brain. Art as a whole has shaped her life, from making short films and drawing to acting and writing plays. She loves art and media that is honest, empathetic, and bold, and earnestly hopes that her writing and my art hold those properties.

Charlotte is a rising senior at Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts where she studies Creative Writing and Media Arts. She spends much of her time outside and at the Drama Studio in Springfield, Massachusetts, where she’s been acting since the age of nine and writing plays since she was 10. Notable productions include The Wolves and Spring Awakening. She has won two Silver Keys and two Honorable Mentions from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and was a finalist for Smith College High School Poetry Contest. This June, Charlotte was one of the winners of the Fresh Voices poetry contest at the Hillstead Museum, and is looking forward to sharing her work at the reading on August 9th. In the future, she hopes to work as an outdoor educator or novelist, and also hopes to publish poetry, essays, and short fiction.

My portfolio is the beginnings of a graphic novel that explores the themes of trauma, experience, and reclaiming of lost power. The story follows four girls: Zara, Isoken, Aidan, and Eun-ha, who gain power from their struggles in a quite literal sense, and band together in an attempt to heal. In this portfolio you will see character sketches as well as the background stories for each of the main characters. My goal is to eventually have a completed graphic novel.

"None of their mothers knew they were pregnant until two weeks too late. All four had needed the money, and the medical trials paid well. By the time the two weeks passed, it was useless, and they waited with cold dread for the doctors to sit them down and tell them about extra limbs, inverted organs, the outtakes of a zombie movie’s gore. They expected hard months and long nights and guilt that would last them years.

But the appointments came and went, and the ultrasounds showed no irregularities, and the mothers held their breath a little braver, and they labored long and hard and painfully until there were five little children, three girls and one boy. And the babies were picture-perfect. The mothers counted and recounted, and checked and rechecked, but nothing changed. There were ten fingers and ten toes, and two chubby cheeks and wide eyes. And their mothers loved them twice as much, and combed baby hair with their fingers, and thanked their Gods for the little children. "

"She had known before, or at least she partly did. The way, that mixed in with the people on their knees in thanks, mixed in with those who called her an inspiration and a miracle and divine, there were those that looked at her with wary eyes. Those that hung back and wore dark sunglasses, and made the security men usher her forward. There were the relatives who couldn’t make it to Eid that year, and didn't remember to call her on her birthday.

She couldn’t help it. Truly, before the cries of antichrist she had loved her job. That’s what her mother called it- ‘job’. Never ‘power’ or ‘ability’ like the news-people always said. No, it was a job to fly over the Amazon rainforest in a helicopter, holding out her hand as if to touch the millions of trees weaving their way up from the ground. A job in third-world countries where she would plant her bare feet to the dirt, screw her eyes shut and make fruit trees climb out from the ground, fields of vegetables blossoming in a second. A job when she would visit classrooms of children her own age, grow them each a single flower in a little potted plant."

"The counselors’ calls rang in my head, and I realized something both painfully funny and painfully painful. No one knew my name. Wasn’t that the point of this whole thing? So I kept climbing, lungs deflating like sad balloons, until I was standing on the top of Fantastic Mountain, soaked with sweat and rain, staring up at the storm clouds and searching for God.

“I did it!” I screamed, voice fighting against wind and exhaustion. Simultaneously a battle cry and a plea. If there was a God, if Mom and Dad and the Pastor was right, if I hadn’t been left behind like some cosmic oversupply, I had made myself worthy of a sign. And suddenly I felt so small, so tiny and young, standing on a cliff looking out at the rolling hills, rain sweeping the trees. The hairs on my arm stood on end, and I was surrounded by a fuzzy loneliness, a fear that ran to my blood and back out again. There was no safety here.

Someone yelled my name.

A sudden clap of something that sounded like cannonfire, sounded like the end of the world. My vision clouded over with a white light. The Rapture, my brain echoed. Revelations 1:7. Fear of hell. Fear of heaven.

Fear, mostly, of nothing."